Following the UN Security Council vote to approve a three-phase ceasefire in Gaza, U.S. officials and other international allies of Israel are cynically placing blame on Hamas for a stall in current ceasefire negotiations — even as Israel has insisted on indefinitely continuing its massacre in Gaza and Hamas has said its main request is a guarantee that Israel would actually honor the ceasefire.
But reports from a wide variety of news sources on how both Israel and Hamas are approaching the ceasefire proposal suggest that Blinken is lying about which party is accepting of the deal. Indeed, reports have found that it is actually Israel that won’t agree to the deal’s framework: an immediate ceasefire with a limited prisoner and hostage exchange, then a permanent ceasefire and withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, and ultimately the reconstruction of Gaza and return of Palestinians to their homes.
Israel’s insistence on continuing its genocide has been consistent throughout the last eight months, including in reaction to the most recent ceasefire proposals of the past weeks. Officials have said Israel will only stop bombarding Gaza when they decide that Hamas has been eliminated and Palestinians there no longer pose a threat to Israel — a pledge that requires the mass slaughter of Palestinian civilians, as military procedures and Israel’s own public statements have shown.
But the main demand from Hamas appears to be straightforward, according to other officials familiar with the negotiations. Multiple outlets citing such sources have echoed what Hamas officials have said: that they are primarily concerned with getting guarantees from the U.S. and Israel that the deal will actually lead to a ceasefire and withdrawal from Gaza.
Specifically, Hamas is concerned about a lack of assurances from the current proposal about the transition between the first and second phases of the plan, Reuters reports, citing multiple sources involved with the talks. The first phase involves a six-week ceasefire, with the release of some Israeli hostages, while the second phase calls for a permanent ceasefire and Israeli troop withdrawal.
Archived version: https://archive.ph/vNwMx
This is the actual deal. It’s been approved by the US, UN, and Qatar as a mediator. According to the US, it came from Israel, but there’s apparently a little civil war going on in Israel’s government about whether to “agree” to it or not. It seems likely to me that the terms were simply dictated to a mostly-unwilling Israeli government, then announced (by the US) “on behalf of Israel,” and now they’re pouting about it but also don’t want to say out loud to their sugar daddy “fuck you I don’t want to,” because then we might stop arming them so comprehensively and vetoing things for them at the UN, and so they’re stuck.
Hamas’s proposed changes are not public, so it’s impossible to say how big a deal they are or how necessary. I tend to blame Israel in general because they are so clearly acting in bad faith and also they’re the ones killing all these innocent people, but… I also have to say that Blinken’s statement makes some sense to me.
It would have been very easy for Hamas to simply agree to the deal on the table, and if Israel wants to reject it, or “accept” it but just continue the war immediately under some paper thin excuse (both of which seem highly likely), then at least there’s not this weird confusion about whose fault that is. It’s hard to come up with an explanation for Hamas wanting changes and fucking the whole thing up that doesn’t involve blaming them for the inevitable results of that decision at least partly. To me as an unqualified observer person.